Plan for the mysterious meeting of the "Top 100" at Apple. Jobs letter

In October 2010, Steve Jobs sent an email to Phil Schiller (Apple's Senior Vice President of Marketing) with the subject “Top 100 - A.” The letter contained a plan for a top-secret meeting called "Top 100", which was scheduled to take place in early 2011.

Top 100 meetings are important events at Apple. In 2011, CNN told what this meeting is all about and how it all happens ... Now we are sharing this information with Habr.
There is a small group of employees at Apple who met with Steve. It’s called the Top 100, and every year or so, Jobs gathered these favorites for a three-day intensive strategy regarding the company in a safe, unknown place. Everything related to the Top-100 meeting, as well as its existence, is shrouded in mystery. Those who participated were strongly advised not to add this event to their calendar. The participant must completely deny their connection with such an event, even during discussions within the company. The guests were not allowed to come to the venue in their own car, instead they had to take buses that run from Cupertino (Apple headquarters) to places like the luxury Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, which satisfy two main requirements Jobs: good food and lack of golf. Apple carefully selected the place, checking the conference rooms for bugs or other listening equipment.

The Top 100 meeting was an important management tool for Jobs. He and his main assistants used the meeting to inform tops about where the company is strategically moving. The event also gave Jobs the opportunity to share his global plan with the new generation of Apple leaders. Jobs focused on personalities. Each session was created according to the same rules as the world-famous presentation of Apple products that Steve conducted. For speakers, career rates were extremely high, as was great pressure on the nerves. “The Top 100 meeting was the worst event in life for about 10 speakers. For the remaining 90, these are the best few days of their life, ”recalls one of the former vice presidents, who also spoke on stage with a report several years ago. Jobs sometimes used meetings, to present hundreds of selected company’s most important initiatives. “I was on the Top 100 when Steve showed us the iPod. Except for us, absolutely no one knew about the iPod, ”said Mike Janes, who worked at Apple from 1998 to 2003 and remains close to Apple’s leadership.

To be among those invited to the Top 100, the participant had to be personally approved by Steve Jobs, while the position of the invitee did not have much significance. “My job is to work with the top 100 best employees of the company, and not just with vice presidents. Some of them are simply key figures in the company that generate certain ideas that I can spread to the entire hundred, ”Jobs once said in an interview with Fortune in 2008. In private conversations, Jobs gave the top 100 even more importance. If Steve had to create some kind of new company, then he would bring these 100 people with him.

And yet, contrary to the existence of a hundred favorites, Apple did not have a caste system. A one-time invitation to the "Top 100" did not at all mean that now you are there forever. By decision of Jobs, the list of participants changed from year to year, and it is quite humiliating to be expelled from this elite club. For those who stayed in Cupertino, chatter and gossip began exactly at the moment when the elect left. The employees who prepared the top hundred arranged such a “lunch of the worst hundred” for themselves to discuss the news.

Below is Jobs 'new letter, which became public in a lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, although it appears as the defendant’s attachment marked “ Highly Confidential - Attorneys' Eyes Only"(Strictly confidential, only for lawyers). Given the level of secrecy of these Top 100 meetings and the fact that 2011 was the last year for Jobs at Apple, this letter deserves special attention.

From: Steve Jobs
Date: October 24, 2010 6:12:41 PM
To: ET
Topic: Top 100 - And

here is my current plan. Steve

1. Strategy for 2011 - SJ
- Who are we?
- Number, average age, ...
- Number of vice presidents, promotion of senior employees over the past year
- Percent of newcomers to this meeting
- What are we doing?
- A pie chart from the line of products and the revenue that they generate
- The same graphics with connected tablets and phones
- The era after the PC
- Apple is the first company to reach it
- The post-PC era products generate 66% of the company's revenue
- iPad surpassed Mac sales and within 6 months
- Post-PC era = more mobile (smaller, thinner, lighter) + communications + applications + cloud services
- 2011: Holy War with Google
- We will compete with them in all directions
- The main reason for the meeting of “Top-100” - you will hear about what we do in each presentation
- 2011: Year of the Cloud
- We invented the Digital Hub concept
- a PC as a center for all your digital assets - contacts, calendars, bookmarks, photos, music, videos - the Digital Hub (the center of our universe) moves from computer to cloud
- PC is now just another device along with iPhone, iPad, iPod Touc h, ...
- Apple is in danger, tied to the old paradigm for too long (innovator dilemma)
- Google and Microsoft are ahead in technology, but still do not quite understand it - to link all our products together to close users in our ecosystem
- 2015: new campus

2. Status of the company - Peter and Tim
- Results of the 2010 financial year
- Plan for fiscal year 2011
- Where is our business - geo-analysis (other, Europe, Japan, Asia, possibly breaking into China) (presentation on the map)
- Milestones, trends and future goals
- Comparison with Google, Samsung, HTC , Motorola and RIM

3. iPhone - Jos and Bob
- Strategy for 2011:
- iPhone 4 plus with the best antenna, percent Essor, camera and software to stay ahead of the competition until mid 2012
- Create an LTE version in mid-2012
- Create a budget iPhone model based on iPod Touch to replace 3GS
- Business and competitive update
- Show Droid and RIM ads
- Verizon iPhone
- Schedule, marketing, ...
- iPhone 5 hardware
- H4 performance
- New antenna design, etc.
- New camera
- Plan
- CONFIDENTIAL
- Target cost
- Show model (and / or visualization) - Joni

4. iPad - Bob, Joni, Dan Riccio, Michael Tchao, Randy Ubillos, Xander Soren, Roger Rosner - 2011 Strategy: ship the iPad 2 with incredible hardware and software before competitors catch up with our current model
- Business and Competitive update - Michael
- Applications, adaptation for the corporate sector, ...
- Show advertisements Samsung, HP (?) and iPad
- 2011 product map - Bob, Dan & Joni
- iPad 2
- New ID, H4, UMTS + Verizon in one model, camera , ... - EVT
- the HDMI connector (used for projection demo below?)
- the iPad 3
- Display, H4T
- dEMO:
PhotoBooth (Michael?)
- the iMovie (Randy)
- GarageBand (Xander)
- The system of creating copyright text books (Roger)
- A working display for the iPad 3 (during the break)

5. iOS - Scott, Jos
- Strategy: catch up with Android in the areas where we are lagging behind (notifications, tethering, speech, ...) and beat them (Siri, ...)
- Timeline of iOS releases from first to Telluride, including Verizon
- Jasper
Fundamentals - Durango Fundamentals (without MobileMe)
- Telluride Fundamentals (based on the principle of “catching up and overtaking”)
- DEMO:
- Jasper : AirPlay for AppleTV - video from iPad, photo from iPhone, ...?
- Durango :? (without MobileMe)
- Telluride: Siri ,?

6. MobileMe - Kew, SJ, Roger Rosner
- Strategy: catch up with Google cloud services and get around them (Photo Stream, data storage in the cloud) - Android
- Deep integration into Google cloud services
- Far ahead of Apple in cloud services for contacts, calendar, mail
- 2011
- Year of the Apple cloud
- Connect everything our products together
- Make the Apple ecosystem even more binding
- Free MobileMe for iPhone 4, iPad and the new iPod touch
- Jasper
- Register using Apple ID, Find My iPhone
- Durango
- Find My Friends, calendar, contacts, bookmarks, Photo Stream
- April
- iWork cloud storage
- Telluride
- Cloud for apps third their faces
- iOS backup
- New iDisk for Mac
- Growth
- Projected growth, cost / user
- Plan, scalable to 100 million users
- Plan for the transition to a paid subscription
- How about email?
- DEMO:
- Find My Friends
- Calendar
- Photo Stream
- iWork cloud storage (Roger Rosner)

7. Mac - David Moody, Bob, Craig Federigi, Randy Ubilos and? - Hardware diagram
- Lion plan
- Mac App Store
- Final Cut Pro DEMO (Randy &?)

8. Apple TV 2 - David Moody, Jeff Robbin
- Strategy: to stay in the game room and make a must-have accessory for iOS devices
- Sales, forecasts for this holiday season
- Add content:
- NBC, CBS, Viacom, HBO, ...
- Subscribe to TV?
- Where are we going from here?
- Applications, browser, magic wand?

9. Store Updates - Eddie, Patrice
- Music
- Strategy: go even further ahead of Google in music
- Beatles
- iTunes in the cloud
- App Store
- Strategy: go even further ahead of Google in developing new iOS apps

10. Update iAds - Andy Miller

11. Retail Update - Ron Johnson

Once, Steve Jobs used a quote from the famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky, which fully reflects his approach to managing Apple: " I’ll slip where the puck will be, not where it was ."